Willett Distillery

Willett Distillery

Type	Private
Industry	Alcoholic beverages
Founded	1936 (1936)[1]
Founder	A. Lambert Willett and sons (esp. A. L. "Thompson" Willett)
Headquarters	Bardstown, Kentucky
Key people	Even G. Kulsveen Martha H. Kulsveen (née Willett) E. A. "Drew" Kuslveen Janelle Kulsveen Hunter Chavanne K. M.-B. "Britt" Chavanne (née Kulsveen)
Products	Spirits
Website	www.kentuckybourbonwhiskey.com

Willett Distillery,^[2][3] also known as Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (KBD), Ltd., is a private family-owned and -operated company that produces various brands of bourbon and rye whiskey.^[4][5][6][7] Over the years the company has bottled Bourbon and Rye Whiskeys that range from 2 years of aging maturity all the way up to 28 years.

The company is located on the outskirts of Bardstown, Kentucky on a site that began as a farm owned by the family. Primarily operating as a relatively large independent bottling company, KBD has been called "the big daddy of bourbon and rye bottling".^[5] The company has remained under family ownership and operation at the same location since it was created in 1936 as the Willett Distilling Company. The company started doing business as KBD in the mid-1980s. As of October 2011, the company employed about 14 people – four family members and 8–12 line workers.^[7] In 2012, it began promoting the Willett name again as its primary business name.^[2]

In addition to marketing a number of its own brands, KBD also operates as a contract bottler for various brands that are owned and marketed by others.

Most (perhaps all) of the brands that are owned by KBD do not actually identify KBD as the producing company on their labels. Instead the company does business under various fictitious company names. These other business names often correspond to the bottling brand names (such as the Old Bardstown Distilling Company for the Old Bardstown bourbon brand and the Noah's Mill Distilling Company for the Noah's Mill bourbon brand).

KBD did not operate as a distillery during the period between the early 1980s and January 2012,^[8][9] although the company had the word distillers in its name (and similarly used "distilling company" and "distillery" in the various company names that it printed on labels). However, KBD has been refurbishing and enhancing its prior distillery plant, and began limited test distilling on January 21, 2012.^{[8][10][11][12][13][14]} The company does not identify specifically where in Kentucky its products are distilled, although it has been suggested that most of their products have been distilled by the Heaven Hill Distillery, which has its company headquarters located close to KBD.^[9] The two companies are located about a half mile from each other along the same road in Bardstown, Kentucky.

For its new distilling operation, the company has three operating stills – a column still, a "doubler", and a pot still.^[15] The company has eight warehouses on site – each of which holds 5000–6000 barrels of whiskey for aging.^[15] Master Distiller Drew Kulsveen said that the warehouses are about a quarter of the size of those found at other distilleries.^[15]

Company history

The company was founded as the Willett Distilling Company in 1936.^[1]

John David Willett (born in 1841) had been the master distiller for the Moore, Willett & Frenke Distillery, which he had formed with his brother-in-law Thomas S. Moore of Bardstown, and a Mr. Frenke of Louisville. In 1876, Willett fell ill and sold his interest in the company.^[16][17] The resulting company became the Mattingly Moore Distillery. John David Willett would, however, live on for another 38 years after this transaction. He died in 1914. The Mattingly Moore Distillery would itself go forward to become an important part in the history of other significant bourbon brands, such as the Tom Moore bourbon brand and other brands of the Barton Brands distillery (sometimes known as the Tom Moore distillery).

Starting at the age of 15 with a five-year stint at the Mattingly Moore Distillery, his son A. Lambert Willett (born in 1883) picked up his father's profession.^[16] Lambert Willett then worked for the Max Selliger & Co. Distillery for twenty years – eventually becoming one-third owner and superintendent of the plant.^[16] A. L. "Thompson" Willett, Lambert's son (born in 1909), also joined him at the plant as assistant superintendent. Lambert Willett later purchased a farm and, together with his sons and especially led by Thompson Willett, founded the Willett Distilling Company on the site. Thompson and Lambert Willett used John David Willett's bourbon recipes as the basis of the whiskey that they would distill there and brand as Old Bardstown.

The construction of the Willett Distilling Company began in the Spring of 1936 (soon after the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States), and the company produced its first batch of 300 bushels (about 30 barrels) on March 17, 1937.^[1] Five years after founding the Willett Distilling Company, Lambert Willett left Max Selliger & Co. to pursue the family business full-time.^[18] Lambert Willett and at least four of his sons held substantial positions of responsibility at the company. Lambert Willett died in 1970.

A. L. "Thompson" Willett, the son of Lambert Willett, was the president of the company until 1984. At one time, he was also the president of the Kentucky Distillers Association, and he also held a number of other positions of prominence in the community. He was a member of the Nelson County Historical Society, where his interests included the early history of whiskey-making in Kentucky.^[19] Thompson Willett's legal name was actually the same as his fathers, but he became known as "Thompson", using the maiden surname of his mother (née Mary Catherine Thompson) to distinguish him from his father.

Thompson Willett's daughter Martha Harriet Willett and some other members of her generation of the family worked for the company as well, and in 1972 she married Even (pronounced Evan) G. Kulsveen of Hamar, Norway, who would later purchase the company.

During the 1970s energy crisis, the company switched from producing whiskey to producing ethanol for gasohol fuel.^[18] This strategy soon failed when fuel prices returned to lower levels, and the distilling facilities were completely shut down in the early 1980s.^[18]

Kulsveen purchased the company and the property on July 1, 1984, and renamed the company to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (KBD), Ltd., registered distillery number DSP-KY-78.^[17] For some time, KBD continued to produce bourbon from the aging barrels that the Willett distillery had produced before they had stopped distilling. As time moved on, KBD increasingly began to purchase its bourbon from other distilleries and operate as an independent bottling company and to restock its barrel aging facilities with purchased barrels. Kulsveen and his wife continue to operate the facility to this day, and the next generation of the family, including their son E. A. "Drew" Kulsveen and his wife Janelle,^[2] their daughter K. M.-B. "Britt" Chavanne and her husband Hunter Chavanne, are also now involved in the company.^[8][14][20] Drew Kulsveen is the current Master Distiller and manages production,^[15] Janelle Kulsveen runs the gift shop and tasting room, Britt Chavanne runs day-to-day operations, and Hunter Chavanne covers sales and marketing.^[2][13]

After having dropped out of the Kentucky Distillers Association (KDA) for decades, the company rejoined in October, 2012.^[2][21] Also in October 2012, the KDA announced that it would expand its Kentucky Bourbon Trail program to include a new "Craft Tour" of seven artisan distilleries, including the Willett Distillery.^[22][23] In December, 2015, it was announced that the Willett distillery was promoted to a higher class of membership in the Distillers' Association, becoming its first member in a new class of membership called the "Proof" level.^[3]

Products

The brands owned and marketed by KBD include the following:

• General market brands:
  • Johnny Drum^[20] bourbon
    • Green label 40-43% abv,
    • Private Stock label 50.5% abv, (various ages including 4, 8, 12, and 15 years)
  • Old Bardstown bourbon
    • Black label 43% abv, 6 year aging;
    • Gold label 40% abv, 6 year aging;
    • Estate Bottled label 50.5% abv, approximately 10 year aging – the original Willett Distillery brand, first batch distilled 1937
  • Vintage bourbon and rye (47% abv, various ages including 17, 21, and 23 years)
• Single barrel brands:
  • Willett Family Estate^[20][24] bourbon and rye^[25] (barrel proof, varying abv and aging, limited distribution)
  • Willett Pot Still Reserve^[24] bourbon (47% abv, 6-7 year^[7] aging) – introduced 2008; bottled in a decorative decanter that received a double gold award for packaging design at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.^[26]
    (Although the product has the term pot still in its name, it has been reported that part of the distillation process for the product was performed using the more common column still distillation method—with a pot still used only for the doubler stage.)
• Small batch (at most 12 barrels^[7] per batch) collection:^[9]
  • Kentucky Vintage bourbon (45% abv, 17 year aging)
  • Noah's Mill bourbon (57.15% abv, 15 year aging)
  • Pure Kentucky XO bourbon (53.5% abv, 12 year aging)
  • Rowan's Creek bourbon (50.05% abv, 12 year aging)^[27] – This is KBD's best-selling brand, available in 27 states as of October 2011.^[7]
• Limited availability brands:
  • Corner Creek bourbon^{[5][8][28][29]} (44.3% abv, 8 year aging)
  • Kentucky Pride bourbon^[5][8][28] (45% abv, 10 year aging)
• Contract Brands: KBD also bottles and ages a number of brands under contract, including the bottling for such brands as:
  • Black Maple Hill small batch bourbon and rye (46.6% abv, 14 year aging, for CVI Brands)^{[5][28][30][31][32]}
  • Classic Cask small batch bourbon and rye (17-21 year aging, for Spirit Imports)^[5][9]
  • Conecuh Ridge small batch whiskey "distilled from bourbon mash"^[33] (45% abv, approximately 4 year aging, for Spirits Acquisition Corp.) – Note that under U.S. regulations a whiskey "distilled from bourbon mash" is similar to a bourbon, but is aged in used oak barrels rather than in new ones.
  • Michter's small batch and single barrel bourbon, rye, and bourbon-like unblended American whiskey
    (various abv and ages, for Chatham Imports)^{[5][28][30][34]}
  • Old Pogue small batch bourbon (45.5% abv, 9 year aging, for the Pogue family)^[35][36]

The company also occasionally releases various limited-edition special bottlings (often bottled under variations of the Willett brand name) for individual distributors.^[24][37][38] In 2014, it released the first of a planned series of "exploratory cask finish" (XCF) special releases, an American rye finished in Curaçao casks from France (51.7% abv, 7 year aging).^[39]

Awards

Many of the company's brands have received awards at the annual San Francisco World Spirits Competition.^[40] These include Willett Pot Still Reserve (gold medal and double gold medal for packaging, 2009), Old Bardstown Gold, Black and Estate Bottled labels (each receiving a silver medal in 2012), Johnny Drum Private Stock (double gold medal, 2010), Johnny Drum Green and Black labels (each receiving a silver medal in 2012), Kentucky Vintage (double gold medal, 2005, silver medal, 2012), Noah's Mill (gold medal, 2005; double gold medal, 2011), Pure Kentucky XO (double gold medal, 2005, silver medal, 2012), and Rowan's Creek (gold medal, 2005; gold medal, 2011).

The Beverage Testing Institute rated Corner Creek bourbon at 92 in a 2010 tasting and Black Maple Hill rye at 95 in a 2008 tasting.^[41] Both of these ratings are in the range of 90-95, which the Institute refers to as "exceptional".

Malt Advocate Magazine rated Willett Family Reserve 22-year-old rye at 96 "a classic" (Vol. 18, #1), Willett Family Reserve 25-year-old bourbon at 95 "a classic" (Vol. 18, #1), Willett Family Reserve 23-year-old rye at 94 "outstanding" (Vol. 17, #2), Vintage 17-year-old bourbon at 92 "outstanding" (Vol. 15, #2), Rowan's Creek 12-year-old bourbon at 92 "outstanding" (Vol. 14, #2), Vintage 21-year-old rye at 91 "outstanding" (Vol. 15, #4), and Willett Pot Still Reserve at 90 "outstanding" (Vol. 17, #2).^[42]

In the 2011 edition of the Whisky Bible by Jim Murray, a Willett Aged 17 Years Barrel Proof was named a "World Whisky of the Year" (10–17 Years Single Barrel).^[43]

See also

• Independent bottlers
• Single barrel whiskey
• Small batch whiskey

References

External links

• Willett Distillery official web site